The Story Continues, Thelma and Louise Make a BIG Discovery!

I have had so many comments saying we should have a good time but I want you to know that we are already home.   We had a great time and I wanted to show you a good time too.  That being said I will bring you along on the continuing trip so buckle up buttercup and let's continue the adventure!  Now where were we?  Oh yes, we had just left the convention center and had to decide what we were going to do next, go back to the room or go to more quilt shops?  Tough choice right?  NOT!  Of course we chose quilt shops.  The first shop we went to was Sauder's.  I bought 2 fabrics a green Kona and a light brown flower for the wedding quilt I am working on.  They had some good choices but nothing I was looking for, here is what I did buy though.  It will be perfect for the quilt!

Next up was shopping at Burkholder's Fabrics.  This shop was in the middle of nowhere, seriously nowhere, but oh so worth it!  There's Louise, everyone say, "Hi Louise", give her a little wave~!  Then we went inside to the shop, OMG!!!  First I was walking around in that front area you see in the photo.  Nice but just nice.  GREAT selection of solids, I even found the perfect fabric to bind the wedding quilt. 

 The photo is not true to color really as it looks a little more blue gray with aqua dots.  PERFECT!!

This whole trip there was one line that I kept on saying we had not seen and I was hoping to and guess what??? I was just strolling around, minding my own business, not seeing anything I was dying to buy, having spent quite a bit already and WHAMO,  THE ENTIRE HOPE VALLEY COLLECTION!!!!  Breathe, Pam, breathe.  Well, I ran to get Lousie, I was so excited, I found her and said, "You are not going to believe this."  She kept on saying, "What?"  Then we were standing in front of it, all of it, squee!!!!  I just started putting bolts into my cart ...and then her cart...and the 2 women that were standing there just laughed at me and got out of the way!!  I wish I had thought to take a shot of my cart, LOL, but this will have to do.  Every one in the line.  OUCH, but AWESOME!

Hope Valley

 BREATHE!!!  All this Denyse Schmidt goodness came home with me.  The funny thing?  Louise bought the exact same grouping!!  I guess I am a BAD influence on her!!!

Well after all that excitement what could we do to top that?  Get back in the car and drive to the resort that's what!  We set up to sew.  I sewed some more of my Dream On stars and so I finally managed to make all but 3 of them for the quilt!!  Here's what our set up looked like.

My machine was on the end and hers was in the middle.  Louise got the binding sewn on that little coin quilt (which was mine) and then just had the hand work to finish it up.  She had brought her Layer Cake QAL blocks but there was no time Wed night to work on those, maybe on Thursday.  The plan for Thursday was to get up and go to the Hershey Factory then off to the ancillary quilt show and vendor mall.  That's it for now, I hope you are enjoying our trip so far.  I will try to finish it up in the next post and show the rest of the fabrics I bought so stay turned!  ~XOP~

The Lancaster AQS Show and More Adventures of Thelma and Louise!

We set our alarm and got up early so we could be at the show around 8:30am.  Staying in Hershey we had about a 45 minute drive or so.  I knew from experience that it is best to go on the first day and first thing in the am too.  So we packed up the car and off we went.  We parked in a structure near by and walked to the convention center.  Louise had to register so she did that and then we were ready for our day to begin.  A woman came out of the show and announced all the winners.  I was off checking my coat but Louise was there to listen.  Then it was time to go in.  YIPEE!  We went into the show and now we had to decide where to go.  I suggested that we go around and see the quilts first because it is easier to get photos when it is less crowded (and this idea paid off!)

We walked around and saw some really cool quilts.  Here are 2 of my favorite ones. (The first one looks like our friend LTW's dog Buster) The bird one was amazing too, so life like!

There seemed to be a lot of traditional applique quilts and a lot that were bejeweled too. We just happened to catch this winner near her quilt and she had just found out she had won an award. She was thrilled!! It was all hand quilted too. She told us it took her 6 years to finish. Look at the lines in that basket.

This one is the one that took Best in Show (according to Louise)

This one was cool and won something too. It was pretty jeweled too.

It's funny but as much as I love peacocks there were a lot of peacock things in and around the show. Like this beautiful quilt.

This one was all different kinds of birds (including peacocks) We happened to catch the quilt maker of this gorgeios quilt and she told us that this hand quilted quilt took her 9 years off and on to complete.

There were, I think they said< 175 quilts entered in the show. We finished fairly quickly and were off to the vendors. We had bought most of our fabric at the local shops so I think I bought 3 FQ's at the show and Louise didn't buy any fabric. BUT...and this is a BIG BUT...we did spend on patterns. I only bought 2 patterns. One for a wall hanging and the Scandinavian Christmas set by Lynette Anderson. Louise bought a LOT more, LOL.

The only other thing I bought at the show was the Curve Master foot (an amazing tool). The designer said that she was able to make a double wedding ring in 3 days using this foot, and my friend Allie bought one and told me it was great too! I bought a chenille brush too to fluff up the chenille when you make a line of it. The woman I bought it from had designed some lined paper to make the lines of chenille but I didn't purchase that just the brush.

It was kind of interesting that we felt like we were ready to go around 2:30 or so. We decided that maybe we needed to visit a few more local shops. On the way out of the show we were greeted by officer MacDonald and Ozzie.

This was the entrance to the convention center

Into the car we went and off to the next adventure. I'm going to stop here and finish later. Have a wonderful night and stay tuned for more of our adventures.
XOP

The Adventure Continues

It is now Tuesday and we were off to more quilt shops.  Really?  We are seriously supporting the PA economy at this point but here we go!  Louise had found some original feed sacks at Bitty Kinna's on Monday and needed to call a friend of hers to see if she was interested in some as she is a collector.  She was so on Tuesday we went back to pick some up.  Pretty aren't they?

I think the next stop was the Old Country Cupboard. This shop had an extensive selection. We found some of the Kona we had been looking for here as well as a few other things too!

We were in Intercourse (located between Blue Ball and Paradise!!LOLOL)


The next place we went to was a trip. Have you ever watched the show Hoarders?? Well, this shop could be on that show and I'm not kidding. You could barely walk through it and it was impossible if you actually wanted something in the middle of a stack, just look at this!

It was more of a curosity rather than a place to actually buy stuff, but there was a nice little thrift shop next door and I got some cool stuff there.

Pretty cool huh? I think I will take the peacock embroidery apart and use it for a quilt center but it can stay framed for the minute.

I think we hit the Hayloft after this. It was inside a grocery store! I found some Castle Peeps and a few other pieces of good stuff.

After that we made our way back to the room. WE were pooped! Again we wanted to do some sewing. I laid out some of my tumbler quilt and realized that I needed some additional fabrics in order to finish it and make it big enough for what I wanted. The print fabric I was using is no longer available and I didn't see any more of it while we were shopping either. Then it was time for bed. The saga continues when we make our way to the quilt show on Wednesday. ~XOP~

Thelma and Louise's BIG Adventure

You probably know about Thelma and Louise right?  Well Quilting Queen and I have used this title for ourselves for some time.  This whole trip everyone got to know us by these names so when I refer to Louise you will know it is the Quilting Queen, kk?  So our story begins on last Sunday when Lousie picked me up and we set off on our big adventure!  We had her little car packed to the gills with our clothes, our sewing machines, our projects and FOOD, lots and lots of food!!!  Just let me say that Louise is an amazing traveling companion.  It took us nine hours to arrive at the resort in Hershey but we finally got there about 5:30pm.  Here is what our resort looked like.  You can see our kitchen and then looking into the living room.


We had really nice rooms too. Mine and then Louise's (I took these as we were leaving so yer bed was being stripped.)


After arriving we were pretty tired so we just brought all our stuff in and settled in for the night. We wanted to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for shopping on Monday morning. The first place we went was Martin's Fabric Barn.

We found a LOT of things to love here. Free Spirit solids for a very modest price. You will see what I bought later when I can show you all at one time. Trust me, if you are looking for FS solids, this is the place to go. They will ship to you too! Just look at all these Free Spirit solids, YUM!

See what I mean? I am making the quilt called My Tweets and was looking for colors to use for the blocks so you will see many of my purchases were for that quilt. Whew, we spent so much in this shop.  On to Stitch and Craft.  I didn't have any photos in there, but Louise got some 30's backings at a good price there.  Next we headed to Bird In Hand and Intercourse.  The first stop was Sylvia's.  She had lots of beautiful quilts hanging outside and we got some good deals here too.  I think this is the only photo of me on my camera!

We had two days before the quilt show began so we hit as many shops as we could.  After Sylvia's we went to the Log Cabin Quilt Shop and then on to Quilt and Fabric shop.

I think we ate lunch in there somewhere. You have to allow me a little grace since all the days ran together in some way, LOL. Wewent to a shop called Bitty Kinna's too and this was a really fun place. The women cutting the fabric were a riot and so fun! The owner, Gina was a doll and Louise bought 2 patterns that Gina had designed. (I have sooooo many photos that if you want to see them all you will have to go to my Flickr to see them all).


The last place we went on Monday was Zooks. It looked small but they had TONS of fabric inside. I found some Sweet by Moda and some Tamis Keefe prints as well as some TOT for the peacock quilt.
 
We had hoped to do some sewing but we were soooo tired we did not do much sewing.

I'm going to stop for now but if you just can't wait you can go to my Flickr and see all the photos. I leave you looking forward to our exploits on Tuesday. Have a great evening!! ~ XOP~